


Caged

by Daegaer



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angels, Archangels, Escape, Gen, Kings & Queens, Legends, Persian Empire, Talmudic Legend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23444038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: The queen of Persia receives an ethereal visitor.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 22





	Caged

In the days of Ahasuerus, the king of all the world threw a great feast for all the nobles of Persia and its dominions, so that they could be properly awed by his power, his fabulous palace and his incredible wealth. His queen threw a similar party for the chief of their wives, even though many of these ladies had never ventured outside their satrapies before and had no conversation at all. After a full week of merry making, messengers came from the king's party to announce that His Majesty demanded the presence of Her Majesty so that he could prove he had the most beautiful wife in the world. She should just come as the Wise Spirit created her, clothing wasn't needed.

Vashti withdrew to her private rooms to consider the matter. It was very annoying, and extremely inconsiderate of her husband, who was an annoying and inconsiderate man, as well as being a somewhat cruel absolute ruler and rather thick to boot. It was an especially annoying way to singnal an end to one's life, she thought, given all her hard work over the past week, keeping her visitors happy. Today she just hadn't been able to take any more and had been avoiding her own guests, having deputized several of her higher ranked servants to keep them fed and watered in royal fashion. Until Ahasuerus' summons had come she had been in the middle of a very nice private conversation with one of the eunuch servants of some provincial official's wife from the satrapy of Over-The-River, about fashion and its importance in world history. Her only thought, as she sipped her snow-cooled wine until the messengers arrived in her courtyards was, if some Yehudite hick servant could dress so well, why couldn't the average Persian lord? The more traditional they were the more likely that they were only interested in hunting, riding and archery, and their wives were interested in practically nothing. Now she longed for the safety of the other women's boring conversation, the safety of the start of the week of merry-making, when surely she could somehow convince her husband not to go down this path.

"Your mistress is enjoying herself in Susa?" she said, mechanically polite. She wasn't sure when or how her conversation partner from the party had come into her private rooms, but it didn't really matter, given the current situation. She rested her head against the gilded end of her couch, her eyes on the carved griffins. If only a griffin would appear suddenly to bear her away on its wings.

"My mistress is more-or-less pleased with the entire world on more-or-less the same level," her visitor said, attracting her attention back to him. " _I_ like the fashions here." He smoothed down a gleaming, bright blue silken sleeve, watching how the colour changed as he shifted the angle. He was very tall and broad-shouldered for a eunuch, but of course there was no way that any other sort of adult man could have entered even the most outermost of her apartments. "This cloth is from Cathay, I was told. It took a year to get here and only the very finest people – and their servants –" He smiled in a too familiar yet somehow utterly charming way. " – can have clothes made of it."

"It's called _silk_ ," Vashti said, and on a whim held out a corner of her fine, translucent veil. Her husband liked fine clothing, but didn't look at it in the way that this Yehudite did, as if it were some sort of marvel. "This is also silk."

"Oh my. Beautiful."

Her maids took little gasps of outrage as he stroked the veil in appreciation. Men weren't supposed to touch her or her clothing, not even eunuchs. It could be lonely, waiting for the king to notice a women's existence, and affairs with pretty eunuchs or other ladies of the harem were not unknown, although dangerous. The queen, however, had to be above such things no matter how much of a cruel idiot she considered her husband.

Perhaps she should have an affair with him, she thought, watching his fingers touch the fabric gently. If she somehow survived this day it would be something to consider - she could always have him killed afterwards, and it wasn't like he could get her pregnant. Or maybe – if she survived - she should just have a maid discreetly inquire as to whether all Yehudite men were so pretty, and have a series of such men very quietly delivered to her chambers. She looked back at the carved griffin who stubbornly refused to come to life to rescue her and faced down its disapproving stare. She _wasn't_ going to live out the day, so why shouldn't she imagine wild adventures?

"Majesty, are you going to go to His Majesty's party?" her most trusted maid asked. "You can't ignore a summons."

"I'm not going naked," she snapped, sickened at the thought of going to her doom with no dignity. "I'm not a cheap flute-girl!"

"Wear your most expensive silks," the eunuch suggested. "I'm going to buy more before I leave. You just can't get them at home. Or don't go, if it's such a problem."

"I can't _not_ go," she said. "My husband's an idiot. It's such a drain being married to him, but the only way to leave the marriage is to be poisoned by my mother-in-law. She's even more of a drain than him. I just want to stay here, away from all of that." She stared at the floor. "I'm trapped. My mother-in-law will be rid of me at last. I'm dead, and I don't even have any fun to show for it."

"You actively don't want to go?" he said, putting aside his goblet of untouched wine. "Huh. _Someone_ wrote a confusing memo about you. Dubbiel goes on about your beauty so much that everyone assumed you liked to parade around as bare as at Creation; he's moronic." He shook his head and smiled as if at a great joke. "I thought I was going to have to kill you, or smite you with leprosy or something."

"What?" Vashti said in alarm, as her maids shrieked at the presence of an assassin.

"Forget I said anything, look, let's just think about this."

"I – what were you saying?" Vashti said in slight confusion. "Why am I even telling you any of this?"

"I'm a good listener," he said, in the tones of someone who sincerely believed that to be true. "You should just tell Ahasuerus that you aren't going to stand for this sexual harassment, and that good empires are not managed through fear and torture but through proper bureaucratic chains of command and hierarchical procedures to allow a smooth operation of the universe. Ah, realm."

"He's the _King_ of the entire _World_ ," one of the maids interjected.

"Pffft. He's not the ruler of the universe. He's not even one of the rulers of Cathay. Stay here; or leave the palace, if you think it'll prolong your existence by a few years. I mean, a few seconds, a few years, I'm not sure I see the difference but you probably do –"

"I'll give you all the silk in my personal possession," Vashti said.

He sat back. He drew a deep breath. It was, she realized, the first breath he'd drawn during their entire conversation.

"Including the veil? I really like the gold threads shot through it."

"Yes! Everything!"

She took the veil off and handed it over as her maids squeaked in horror at the queen showing her bare head to a commoner.

"Shut up," she said. "If I go, the queen mother will have me poisoned as some kind of slut who appears naked in public. If I don't go, I'll be executed for disobeying the king. And you lot will probably get the chop along with me. I'm saving all of us."

"Actually, _I'm -_ " he said.

"You'll get us out? Get all my silks! Now! And my jewels!"

"I don't need _gold_. What, you think I can be _bribed?_ "

He fell silent as silken tunics and veils were heaped before him, along with lengths of fabric yet to be fashioned into clothing.

"These – these could be recut and sewn together," a maid said, holding up two tunics, "or there is enough in the skirts to let out the upper bodies. I'm an excellent seamstress –"

He picked up a long, diaphanous scarf, and turned it back and forth in the light, smiling slightly.

"Making this sort of thing really is an area where you creatures excel. Just look at how this shines –"

"It's like sunlight flashing on wings," the maid said, clearly trying to be persuasive.

He grinned, his teeth white and perfect. "I hope you're thinking of birds' wings. Insect wings are someone completely different. All right. Let's do this – you're going to vanish, and _not get in our way_. In return, I get you out of here." He nodded, his beautiful, strangely-coloured eyes thoughtful. "Mercy," he said, as if testing the concept. "It is a good thing to show mercy."

" _All_ the silks," Vashti hissed, and the maids threw the flame-coloured gown in which she had been married onto the pile. He stroked its ivory and coral buttons with an expression of sheer pleasure. "How shall you get us past the royal guards?"

He unfolded himself and stood, rolling his shoulders. He was as tall and well-made as a Persian nobleman, she realized, a trickle of worry in her mind that she _had_ been entertaining an ungelded man in her private rooms. Then she thought that she was already committing treason by desiring to flee her marriage, and put the worry aside. The light behind him seemed brighter somehow, its rays spreading out as if he were somehow opening a massive, shining pair of -

"Now, what does the handbook have down as best practice for moments like these?" he mused, and bestowed a serene smile on them all. "Oh yes." His voice rang out, forestalling all further thought. "Do not be afraid."

Vashti and her maids knew no more.

Gabriel whistled, and the songbirds came and landed on his fingers. The most brightly-coloured of them had a long and gloriously patterned tail, with feathers shining like silk from Cathay. The sunlight glinted from all their feathers, catching here and there threads of gold, or damasked patterns. They chirped and hopped on his outstretched hand in a ridiculously cheerful manner, and he couldn't help laughing. With a click of his free fingers he was holding a birdcage and they obediently hopped in, looking at him with their bright little eyes as he shut the door.

"One of you needs to remind me to turn you back at some point," he said, and bent to pick up the final piece of silk from the floor, putting the cage by his feet. He casually wound the translucent silk veil shot through with gold threads around his neck and tied it loosely. No one else in all of Persia had a scarf like it.

"Job well done, Gabe," he said. "Job well done."

He picked up the cage, spread his wings and leapt upwards.

The room was empty.

**Author's Note:**

> One Rabbinic tradition for the refusal of Vashti to attend the King of Persia's feast naked when he summoned her was that Gabriel gave her a tail! (Another was that she was struck with leprosy).


End file.
